Trace elements, which are regulated for aquatic life protection, are a primary concern in highway- and urban-runoff studies because stormwater runoff may transport these constituents from the land surface to receiving waters. Many of these trace elements are essential for biological activity and become detrimental only when geologic or anthropogenic sources exceed concentrations beyond ranges typical of the natural environment. The Federal Highway Administration and State Transportation Agencies are concerned about the potential effects of highway runoff on the watershed scale and for the management and protection of watersheds. Transportation agencies need information that is documented as valid, current, and scientifically defensible to support planning and management decisions. There are many technical issues of concern for monitoring trace elements; therefore, trace-element data commonly are considered suspect, and the responsibility to provide data-quality information to support the validity of reported results rests with the data-collection agency. Paved surfaces are fundamentally different physically, hydraulically, and chemically from the natural surfaces typical of most freshwater systems that have been the focus of many trace-element-monitoring studies. Existing scientific conceptions of the behavior of trace elements in the environment are based largely upon research on natural systems, rather than on systems typical of pavement runoff. Additionally, the logistics of stormwater sampling are difficult because of the great uncertainty in the occurrence and magnitude of storm events. Therefore, trace-element monitoring programs may be enhanced if monitoring and sampling programs are automated. Automation would standardize the process and provide a continuous record of the variations in flow and water-quality characteristics. Great care is required to collect and process samples in a manner that will minimize potential contamination or attenuation of trace elements and other sources of bias and variability in the sampling process. Trace elements have both natural and anthropogenic sources that may affect the sampling process, including the sample-collection and handling materials used in many trace-element monitoring studies. Trace elements also react with these materials within the timescales typical for collection, processing and analysis of runoff samples. To study the characteristics and potential effects of trace elements in highway and urban runoff, investigators typically sample one or more operationally defined matrixes including: whole water, dissolved (filtered water), suspended sediment, bottom sediment, biological tissue, and contaminant sources. The sampling and analysis of each of these sample matrixes can provide specific information about the occurrence and distribution of trace elements in runoff and receiving waters. There are, however, technical concerns specific to each matrix that must be understood and addressed through use of proper collection and processing protocols.

A synopsis of technical issues for monotoring trace elements in highway and urban runoff

This CD presents maps derived from a subset of the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR) data. Approxiamately 260,000 samples were analyzed in the continental U.S. and consisted of solid samples, including stream, lake, pond, spring, and playa sediments, and soils. Data for eleven elements were analyzed and included on this release of the National Geochemical Atlas CD: Na, Ti, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Ce, Hf, Pb, Th, and U. The National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) program of the Department of Energy (DOE) collected a vast amount of chemical data on sediment, soil, and water samples from the United States in the late 1970's and early 1980's. This element of the NURE program was known as the Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR). The NURE HSSR data have long been available to the public in a variety of formats, ranging from the original paper reports produced by the DOE (see Averett, 1984), to comprehensive digital releases on CD-ROM by the U.S. Geological Survey in the last few years (Hoffman and Buttleman, 1994; 1996), to digital releases on the Internet of reformatted and cleaned data (Smith, 1998). While these publications remain the best sources of the complete, primary data, and are accompanied by documentation of the sampling protocols, sample characteristics, and analytical methods, they are difficult to use for geochemical research, especially when the study area covers a wide area of the United States. This publication is intended to allow the rapid visualization of the geochemical landscape of the United States using the NURE HSSR data. Here, the user is relieved of the responsibility of selecting and processing the raw data; this was done in the preparation of the CD. A powerful geographic-information system (GIS) tool, the ArcView program of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), is provided to allow one to probe and manipulate the processed NURE data. Within the ArcView environment, multiple presentations of the NURE are provided, ranging from color-coded point maps, to bitmap-images on a national scale, to interpreted maps based on geologic and hydrologic units. Because the NURE HSSR data have been processed by the author for the production of this CD, the user must use a degree of caution in interpreting the maps produced here, and in using the data files found on the disc. One must understand the methods used in deriving the data on this CD in order to judge the significance of any particular map or data feature. Fortunately, the raw data used in the production of this CD are available in digital form (Hoffman and Buttleman, 1996), for examination by sophisticated users.

National Geochemical Atlas: The Geochemical Landscape of the Conterminous United States Derived from Stream Sediment and other Solid Sample Media Analyzed by the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) Program

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/pdf/sediment-quality-in-the-north-coastal-basin-of-massachusetts-1nys0a7lbx.pdf

Douglas Heath

Papers

Sediment quality in the north coastal basin of Massachusetts, 2003